Driving Her Crazy - By Amy Andrews Page 0,20

‘Leo?’

Sadie mentally chastised herself for the slip. But she smiled at Kent calmly and said, ‘Mr Pinto.’

Kent wasn’t buying it. ‘Leo’s very...familiar,’ he pushed. ‘I hear he’s only Leo to his friends.’

Sadie looked out of the window as they left the last of Cunnamulla behind. ‘Is he?’

Kent considered her deliberate evasion, intrigued despite himself. Which was just as well. Seeing that thong last night had tripped some kind of switch in his head. And he didn’t like where it was taking him. Maybe the Pinto/Bliss conundrum would give him something else to think about other than Sadie oozing curves and sex all over the passenger seat.

‘Thirteen hours is a long time to stay silent, Sadie Bliss. I bet you can’t even manage two.’

Sadie looked back at him, ignoring his deliberate baiting. ‘Why do you say my name like that?’ she diverted.

‘What? Sadie Bliss?’

She listened as he said it again, rolling it around his tongue like a particularly delicious morsel. She imagined what that tongue could do to certain parts of her anatomy and muscles deep in her belly went into free fall.

He shrugged. ‘Sensational byline. Very rockstar. Is it real?’

Sadie rolled her eyes at the familiarity of the question. ‘Yes. Just like my boobs and my lips it’s one hundred per cent real.’

Kent flicked a glance at her. She was glaring at him with exasperation. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said because, no matter what, there wasn’t one iota of that conversation he was going anywhere near.

Sadie deliberately ticked down the minutes until two hours were up before turning to Kent and yanking on his ear bud.

‘Let’s make a deal,’ she said.

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘Bet that was the longest two hours of your life.’

‘Nope. Two minutes in a bathroom with a mutant spider was much longer.’

‘Okay, so let’s see if we can go another two, shall we?’ he suggested as he located his swinging ear bud.

Sadie shook her head. ‘We’re not going to sit here all day and not talk to each other again.’

Kent flicked a glance at her, then back at the road. ‘We’re not?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

Kent shrugged. ‘It was working for me.’

She folded her arms. ‘Have I mentioned how very annoying I can be when I set my mind to it?’

Kent didn’t doubt it. He remembered how she’d harped on about the spider last night until he’d hunted the poor thing from the room. ‘You mean you haven’t set it already?’

She ignored him. ‘We’ll just agree on a subject and stick to the boundaries of it.’

He eyed her warily. ‘Like what?’

She shrugged. ‘How about starting at the beginning? Our childhoods?’

Kent considered it for a moment. It was a safe topic. No skeletons to hide. It could be a good trade for some peace and quiet. He reached for a packet of potato chips he had left over from yesterday. ‘Okay,’ he agreed, opening them as he drove along. ‘But then I get silence for the rest of the day.’

Sadie shook her head, ignoring the aroma of carbohydrates, leaning forward to grab the carrot sticks she’d chopped earlier. ‘For another two hours,’ she bargained.

Kent tapped his fingers on the wheel. ‘Mid-afternoon.’

‘Lunchtime,’ she returned without even taking a breath.

‘After lunch,’ he clarified.

Sadie considered it for a moment. It was better than nothing. She nodded at him and then launched straight into it. ‘So, what’s the Kent Nelson story?’

Kent kept his eyes trained on the road as he munched on chips. ‘Not a lot to tell.’

She laughed at that and Kent blinked as he realised he hadn’t heard it before. Her laughter was deep and throaty and he found himself utterly intrigued. It wasn’t tittery or tinkly or musical like so many of the women he knew. It was full roar, like the rest of her. So few people, especially the places he’d been, laughed with every fibre of their being.

But Sadie Bliss did.

It was strangely soothing in the cocoon of the cab.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Of course not. World renowned, multi-award-winning photojournalist who’s been in every war zone on the planet in the last decade. But nothing here to see, folks, move along?’

‘Okay, how about not a lot I want to talk about?’

Sadie regarded him for a moment. His jaw was clenched just beneath his cheekbone, his brow was scrunched. ‘We made a deal,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh, well, in that case...’

She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his arid tone but she wasn’t going to be put off by it either. ‘Tell me about your parents. I’d appreciate a tale